Why I'm Looking for a New Neurologist

Yesterday was a tough day. We had our six-month review with my daughter, Zoey’s, neurologist (which really ended up being an eight-month review, but OK).

I had to process the entire hour-long visit on the two-hour car ride home. I cried the entire way out of frustration.

The neurologist saw her for one hour. That’s it — one hour. How could he possibly know her progress by only seeing her for one hour and without letting me explain her accomplishments? Zoey has autism, sensory processing disorder, global development delay and obsessive compulsive disorder. She’s progressed in leaps and bounds over the past eight months, but he didn’t listen and it seemed like he didn’t care. Just because you have an MD after your name does not give you the right to talk right through me, talk over me, rush me out and treat my child like a number from the deli line.

I was told she’s made little progress, and I was questioned about how I work with her. He asked, “Don’t you listen and get instructions from the therapists on how to work with her weekly?” I felt judged as a parent. I showed him the video of her singing and tried to talk to him about all she’s done since he last saw her, and he treated her like a statistic. She is not a statistic. She is a human being, and so am I.

When did human compassion and caring for a patient get exchanged for “… Next!”I felt like he was telling me I wasn’t doing my job as a parent and that my child was nothing more than generic deli meat being passed back to me with, “Come back in six months.”

I will not stand for this. We as parents know our children — we see them every day. Zoey has achieved so much over the past 10 months: she now looks us in the face, she gives hugs, she sings and dances, she wants to be around us, she can eat at the table with us and she can count to seven, among many other things.

There are so many things that she’s doing now that she’s never done before, and it’s incredible. Before, she had stopped speaking entirely. She hid away and was in her own world, and I missed her.

I don’t miss her anymore — I’m getting her back every day. That is progress, and it hasn’t been slow. She will be 3 in five months, and we will then transition her to a developmental pre-Kindergarten program.

So I’m currently looking for a new neurologist. One who cares and who won’t treat her like a statistic, and one who will listen to me and my concerns and answer my questions.

Melissa Cote is her children’s advocate when needed, their voice when they can’t speak, forever their mommy who loves them. She is a mom to two beautifully different little girls. And she teaches her girls that “everyone is different and different isn’t bad.”
She blogs about the ups and downs of raising a child on the severe spectrum of autism and spreads awareness, acceptance and support. She also blogs about how she lives with mental illness
She is an active advocate of mental health and autism awareness